Tokyopop to Publish Ghostbusters Manga

Or in this case, read? Why, Ghostbusters, a 192-page one-shot from TokyoPop this fall, of course.

Find out what happens between the Ghostbusters films and
the video games as Peter Venkman, Ray Stanz, Egon Spengler, Winston
Zeddemore and the Ghostbusters team make their first manga appearance!
The phrase "Everyone's a critic" takes on a whole new meaning when the
crew is called in to help out a troubled Broadway production. Later,
Ray learns that being a Ghostbuster isn't always the thrill-a-minute
job he'd imagined it would be. And Egon has a touching interlude with a
former instructor who still has a thing or two to learn about the
afterlife. Then it all comes down to the ultimate showdown between our
heroes and a team of peeved poltergeists.

TokyoPop’s Ghostbusters manga, which was officially
announced at a panel at Anime Expo 2008, is due to be in stores in
October to coincide with the release of the new Ghotbusters: The Video Game
to be published by Sierra Entertainment, written by Dan Aykroyd (who
played Stanz in the movies) and Harold (Spengler) Ramis , who will also
lend their voices and likenesses to the game together with Bill
(Venkman) Murray and Ernie (Zeddemore) Hudson, and developed by
Terminal Reality for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, while the
PlayStation 2, Wii and Nintendo DS versions are being developed by Red
Fly Studio.

TokyoPop editor Bryce Coleman still thinks fondly of the first two Ghostbusters
films from the 80s and says that the franchise still appeals to him
even to this day. “I think it's the same reason it appeals to any fan
of the films. The magic formula of scares and laughs. Not that anything
in either of the movies is what you would consider truly frightening,
but you've got classic monster movie images of ghosts and animated
corpses and monsters,” he told Newsarama. “And they did it all with
reverence for that genre at a very high technical level for the time.
The visuals are fantastic and still hold up today. And then you've got
classic Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd at top form. Some of the best of
that 80's era comedy. Put it all together and you've got absolute geek
ambrosia. At least that's my opinion.

As for why would the Ghostbusters in manga form would appeal to today's
readers and how is TokyoPop planning to capture the essence of the
Ghostbusters in the manga? “Not to sound trite, but largely for the
same reasons as above,” he said. “Horror visuals and comedy writing.
The writers of the stories in this anthology are die hard Ghostbusters
fans, and they've got killer comedic instincts, and the artists are all
having a blast with the ghouls, ghosts and zombies they're getting to
create.”

The writers attached to the project are Nathan Johnson and Matt
Yamashita. “Both Nathan and Matt have worked very hard to make the
stories feel like an extension of the movies. They've keyed in on
certain second tier characters for material and are using the anthology
structure to give characters like Egon or Ray an opportunity to take
center stage in stories largely all their own.”

The artists include Maximo V. Lorenzo, a runner-up of TokyoPop’s Rising
Stars of Manga 4 with his entry, "Hellbender" and artist of the
global/OEL manga, Bombos Vs. Everything as well as creator of the Manga Pilot project, Secret of Noumenon; Hanzo Steinbach, creator of A Midnight Opera and artist of Poison Candy with writer David Hine; Chrissy Delk, finalist of RSoM 7 and co-creator of Paintings of You from Iris Print; Michael Shelfer, People’s Choice winner of RSoM 5, artist for short story in Star Trek: The Manga anthology and Dead Already from Seven Seas Entertainment; and Nate Watson, artist of Boom! Studios’ Scream Queen. “For their part, the artists have been watching a lot of Ghostbusters I & II, and then the joy is watching them interpret the world of the Ghostbusters in their own individual styles,” Coleman said.

“We've got two writers and four art teams working on six different
stories, and yet it feels very much like a collaborative effort and
reads more as a complete package as opposed to individual vignettes.
And for that, I really have to give credit [former editor] Luis Reyes,
my colleague, who's responsible for putting this whole thing together.”